Tehran and Tel Aviv in nuclear war of words

Michael Theodoulou, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 23. 2009 12:45AM UAE / October 22. 2009 8:45PM GMT

Iran's International Atomic Energy Agency ambassador, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, leaves a media briefing at Vienna's UN headquarters. Herwig Prammer / Reuters

Iran yesterday angrily denied Israeli media assertions that senior nuclear officials from the two countries held confidential talks last month in what was portrayed as the first direct exchange between the two arch enemies for 30 years.

The reports sparked a flurry of official statements from Tehran and Tel Aviv which, unusually, agreed on many points. Both acknowledged sending representatives to an international conference in Cairo on nuclear disarmament.

Each confirmed there were no direct, bilateral talks. The deliberations were meant to be confidential. But leaked accounts of the conference infuriated Tehran, which said the notion of any sort of meeting with Israel was absurd. “The Islamic republic does not recognise the Zionist regime,” said Ali Shirzadian, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.

He did not deny Iran had attended the conference, but insisted that throughout the Iranian delegation had denounced Israel’s undeclared arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Israeli officials also said it was “preposterous” to suggest that the conference implied diplomatic contact between Tehran and Tel Aviv.

“The two sides did not meet or speak to one another directly,” said Yael Doron, the spokeswoman for Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission.

An Egyptian official present said Israeli and Iranian officials had traded barbs during panel discussions, where representatives from other countries were present.

“We had round-table discussions … then there were cross-table discussions. It was rather polemical, with accusations,” he said.

The Israeli daily, Haaretz, said the Iranian and Israeli representatives “did not meet or shake hands outside the [three panel] sessions”. But it claimed it was “the first direct meeting between official representatives of the two states since the fall of the Shah in 1979” – an assertion disputed by many Iran experts and even Israeli officials.

Israel’s foreign ministry said diplomats from the two countries often attend international gatherings, though it is rare for them to have any interaction, even indirectly.

The reports come at a particularly sensitive time for Iran, which is today due to say whether it accepts a draft deal to send most of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad.

Some Iranian analysts suspected that Israeli accounts of the Cairo conference’s supposed significance were timed to damage any rapprochement between Iran and the West. That suspicion was voiced officially by Mr Shirzadian. “This lie is a kind of psychological operation designed to affect the constant success of Iran’s dynamic diplomacy in the Geneva and Vienna meetings,” he said.

Israel is sceptical about the Vienna proposals, suspecting that Tehran is playing for time. “I am not underestimating the agreement, but we need to concentrate the pressure and keep it up at full intensity. Ourgoal is to neutralise Iran’s ability to obtain nuclear weapons,” Israel’s deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, said.

Israel, the Middle East’s sole, if undeclared, nuclear-armed state, has never ruled out military action to stop Iran achieving a nuclear capability. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is aimed at generating electricity.

Representing Iran in Vienna was its ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, who was back in Tehran yesterday for consultations with the Iranian leadership. Mr Soltanieh also reportedly represented Iran at last month’s Cairo conference.

Representing Israel was the head of arms control at the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency, Meirav Zafari-Odiz, Israeli media said.“These reports about the conference look like they’re intended to create problems for Soltanieh inside Iran,” said one Iranian commentator, who declined to be named.

Some senior figures in Tehran were already “wondering if Tehran is selling the store” – bowing to international pressure on its nuclear programme – the commentator said.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian leaders have forbidden dealings with Israel.

But Iran in the past has dealt with Israel as a matter of expediency, mostly through third parties. In 1986, Iran bought Israeli arms via the US at a time when Tehran was desperately short of weapons during its war with Iraq.

News of the two-day Cairo conference was first leaked last week by an Australian newspaper, The Age, which reported that Iran and Israel had a “very robust” exchange. The event was organised by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, an unofficial forum established by the Australian and Japanese governments.

Haaretz carried a much more detailed version of the conference, which it said was also attended by representatives from the Arab League, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as well as European and US officials.

Haaretz said that in one of the panel discussions, Mr Soltanieh asked Ms Zafary-Odiz point blank: “Do you or do you not have nuclear weapons?” She is said to have smiled but did not respond.

The Iranian ambassador said Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons, did not endanger Israel and insisted that Tehran did not hate Jews but opposed Zionism, Haaretz said.

Ms Zafary-Odiz, in turn, reportedly said Israel was willing in principle to discuss the Middle East as a nuclear-free zone, but only after all countries in the region had made peace with and recognised the Jewish state.

Haaretz described it “as the first direct meeting between official representatives of the two states since the fall of the Shah in 1979”.

Yossi Melman, who wrote the article, told The National: “I’ve covered these topics for many years [and] I’ve never come across such a meeting.”

However, the Mideast analyst Meir Javedanfar, who co-authored a book with Mr Melman, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran, played down the meeting’s significance. “The Middle East dimension and setting is the only thing that sets this meeting apart,” he said.

mtheodoulou@thenational.ae